Clellan; in the Shenandoah valley, Banks with 16,000, and Rosecrans in western Virginia with 20,000. General Buell had united the scattered Federal forces in Kentucky into an army of 100,000, and Halleck was in Missouri with a similar number. A force of 20,000 was put in readiness to operate from Kansas to the Gulf of Mexico, and another army was assembled at Cairo under Generals Grant and C. F. Smith to campaign in co-operation with gunboats along the Mississippi and Cumberland rivers.
The United States naval operations in the beginning of the second year of the invasion contemplated the blockade of the entire coast, so as to cut off the communications of the Confederacy with other nations. The reduction of all ports, and their occupation by the military as points from which various overland incursions might be made, was also a part of the general plan. For these purposes several squadrons were organized—the North Atlantic, Admiral Goldsboro, on the Virginia and North Carolina coasts; the South Atlantic, Admiral DuPont, covering South Carolina, Georgia and northeast Florida; the Eastern Gulf, Flag Officer McKean, and the Western Gulf, Admiral Farragut, on the gulf coast. Three flotillas were employed the Potomac, Commodore Hardwood; the James River, Commodore Wilkes, and the Mississippi, Admiral Foote—each of which operated as its name indicates. The numbers of vessels in service were about 250 steamers carrying 1,500 guns, and 100 sailing vessels—frigates, sloops-of-war, mortar fleets, barks, brigs and ships—with 1,400 guns.
The Confederate States confronted this formidable array of military and naval forces with a general long interior line. At Norfolk and Yorktown were a small force of infantry, well fortified, and some vessels of the little navy. The main army in Virginia rested its right on the Rappahannock below Fredericksburg, and stretching its fortified line by Centreville and Manassas rested the left in the mountains beyond Leesburg. Beyond
